This manuscript is also known as the "Chetwode MS". It contains four sermons by John Donne, written out by Knightly Chetwood (or Chetwode). It is conjectured that Chetwood was a youth of not more than twenty-one years old when he copied out these sermons (see Simpson 1942, p. 237). The volume also contains sermons by Joseph Hall and "Dr Scott". In the 1690s, the manuscript volume was reversed and used as a commonplace book.
Ff. 3r-32r: Sermon on Psalms 144:15 by John Donne. Ff. 32v-60r: Sermon on 1 Timothy 3:16 by John Donne. Ff. 60v-78v: Sermon on Psalms 68:1 by Joseph Hall. Ff. 79r-105r: Sermon on Hosea 2:19 by John Donne. Ff. 105v-177r: Sermon on 2 Corinthians 4:6 by John Donne.
Ff. 178r-195v: verses (begun in 1696), written in Katherine Butler's hand. Ff. 196r-230r are blank. Ff. 230v-276v (in reverse): prose, featuring the heading "A Common Place Book" (1696-c. 1719), in three different hands, including Butler's (ff. 247v-276v, in reverse). Within this section, there are also two letters (ff. 230v-232, in reverse). Dr. Scott's sermon is found at ff. 234r-246v (in reverse). Note that the manuscript has recently been foliated by Mr. Jo Wisdom, Librarian of St. Paul's Cathedral.
Paper, quarto, 277 leaves, 200 × 150 mm. The gold lettering on the spine reads "Dr Donne's Sermons". There are no signatures. The bookplate of St. Paul's Cathedral Library can be found on the inside front cover. Each of the five sermons transcribed by Knightly Chetwood (or Chetwode) is prefaced by a decorated pen-and-ink title page, executed by Chetwood.
"Katherine Butler Given me by my Father May 1693" (f. 1r). Ff. 178r-195v and ff. 247v-276v (in reverse) are written in Katherine Butler's hand.
Evelyn M. Simpson, "A Donne Manuscript in St. Paul's Cathedral Library", Philological Quarterly, 21.2 (April 1942), pp. 237-239; Hannah Yip. See also George R. Potter and Evelyn M. Simpson, The Sermons of John Donne, Volume I (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1953), pp. 41-42, in addition to the website for the Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne (link below).
For more information on Katherine Butler's use of this manuscript as a commonplace book, see Victoria E. Burke, "'The disagreeable Figure of a Common-Place' in Katherine Butler's Late Seventeenth-Century Verse Miscellany" in Joshua Eckhardt and Daniel Starza Smith, eds., Manuscript Miscellanies in Early Modern England (Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), pp. 183-199. The four Donne sermons in this manuscript will be published in The Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne, Volumes II, VII, and VIII (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). See each sermon entry for more details.
Sermon on Psalms 144:15 -- ff. 3r-32r
THE F SERMon by Iohn Donne Doctor of Deuinity & Deane of Paules -- ff. 105v-177r
A Serman [sic] Preached By D[oc]t[o]r Scott:, Eccles. ye: 7: 1 -- ff. 234r-246v (written in reverse)